Managing routine bioassay requirements

The Hanford Site is a very diverse Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Site in Eastern Washington State that includes: retired reactor facilities, spent fuel storage facilities, chemical separations facilities, laboratories, and plutonium separations facilities. As a result worker routine bioassays requirements may include routine whole body counting for mixed fission products, chest counting for uranium or plutonium, and/or urinalyses for plutonium, ura@u@ strontium-90, and tritium depending on work assignments. In such a situation it is easy to perform unnecessary bioassays and incur unnecessary cost. Program Implementation Fluor Daniel Hanford has been working with the Pacific Northwest National. Laboratories to reduce the number of routine bioassays in the internal dosimetry program while ensuring the program is compliant with regulatory requirements. This has been accomplished by: 1. Clearly identifying what work requires routine bioassay 2. Clearly identifying what routine bioassay is required 3. Having a system in place to make sure personnel who need routine bioassay get it and 4. Taking measures to ensure that workers who doiVt need routine bioassay don`t get it.